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You are hereTalking Points Memo: James O'Keefe's Latest 'Terrorist' Medicaid Sting Goes After Woman For Following Law

Talking Points Memo: James O'Keefe's Latest 'Terrorist' Medicaid Sting Goes After Woman For Following Law

By FZ - Posted on 22 July 2011

-By Ryan J. Reilly

July 20, 2011- Stop me if you've heard this one. A man goes into a public assistance office in Charleston, South Carolina in a kilt, tells them he's a member of the Irish Republican Army and asks for help for 25 fellow Irishmen in a hospital who need Medicaid.

A government employee follows the rules and explains the process for filling out a Medicaid paperwork and the qualifications they'd need to meet. She informs them that a federal law intended to protect patient privacy requires her not to divulge any information he's told her.

So what happens next? James O'Keefe's Project Veritas releases a deceptively edited video that makes the woman look like a terrorist sympathizer, though it isn't even clear if she knows the background of the IRA.

In the edited version, the woman says it would not be in her best interest to divulge anything because she could not afford it and she doesn't want to go to jail. As it turns out, that's what she's supposed to do under the law.

To his credit, O'Keefe posted the full unedited video of the "sting" directly after the edited version. Which makes it all the more curious that Project Veritas edited the tape in a way that paints the government employee in a bad light.

"Like I said, someone would have to come here and subpoena our information in order for us to divulge any information, because like I said there's something called the Health Insurance Accountability and Affordability Act -- or portability -- and anyway it went into effect several years ago, and that's what we follow," she said in the unedited video.

"It is federal law, and they do threaten high fines -- which they don't pay me as much per year as they threaten to fine me -- so it is definitely not in my own best interest to divulge anything to anyone because I cannot afford it, I do not want to go to jail," she said.